Albert Barnes Commentary Matthew 9:24

"he said, Give place: for the damsel is not dead, but sleepeth. And they laughed him to scorn." — Matthew 9:24 (ASV)

The maid is not dead, but sleepeth. It cannot be supposed that our Lord means literally to say that the child was not dead. Every possible evidence of her death had been given, and he acted on that himself, and conveyed to the people the idea that he raised her from the dead.

He meant to speak in opposition to their opinions. It is not unlikely that Jairus and the people favored the opinions of the Sadducees, and that they understood by her being dead that she had ceased to exist and that she would never be raised up again. In opposition to this, he used the expression she sleepeth; affirming mildly both that the body was dead and implying that her spirit still lived, and that she would be raised up again.

A similar way of speaking is seen in John 11:11: Our friend Lazarus sleepeth. The sacred writers, who hold the doctrine of the resurrection, often spoke of the dead as sleeping (2 Peter 3:4; Acts 7:60; 1 Corinthians 15:6, 18).

1 Thessalonians 4:13–15. The meaning of this passage then is—the maid has not ceased to exist; but though her body is dead, her spirit lives, and she sleeps in the hope of the resurrection.

Laughed him to scorn. This means they derided him or ridiculed him.